At the Peak

The first of four $100,000 & up races, which top California's long winter season of rich purses, was run at Hollywood Park last week. Fanfared as the "Race of the Year," the Hollywood Gold Cup offered bettors a star-packed quandary.

Heading the entry list were 1950's Horse of the Year Hill Prince, and Handicap Champion Noor. Right behind them, in anybody's book: the leading three-year-old filly, Next Move, and Calumet's handicap star, Ponder (total winnings: $541,275). Others which had to be given a chance at the weights: New York's Palestinian, California's On Trust and the 1946 Triple Crown winner, Assault. Noor, beaten three times in three starts at Belmont in the fall, was back in form; in a tune-up race, he broke the Hollywood track record for a mile and an eighth. Hill Prince had matched this with a smashing mile-and-a-quarter trial. Next Move had won two stakes races in two weeks.

The bettors made Noor the favorite at 7 to 10; Hill Prince went off at 7 to 2. Ponder broke characteristically late, along with Noor and Hill Prince. All the early action was up front, where Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt's filly, Next Move, was setting a blistering pace, closely followed by Palestinian and Assault. Noor got moving on the turn (see cut), blazed down the stretch to win by a length over Palestinian. Hill Prince was three lengths farther back, with Next Move fourth, Ponder fifth. Noor's drive set a track record of 1:59 4/5 for the mile and a quarter, and made him the leading money-winner of the year ($346,940).

Eddie Arcaro, who rode the Prince, thought his three-year-old might have had the worst of the weights (130 Ibs.) against five-year-old Noor (also 130 Ibs.) --but "still and all, my hat is off to Noor." Said wrinkled Jockey Johnny Longden: "Noor is the greatest stakes horse I ever rode." Said Noor's owner, Mrs. Charles S. Howard: "I believe we'll just retire him at his peak."

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